Marijke, one of Engage Now Africa’s staff members in Ethiopia, shares one of her favorite memories from this year’s Ethiopian expedition. Her story gives us a wonderful inside look at an Ethiopia home. Her story is below… “My favorite memory of the week we spent working in Gerbichu is our visit with the leader of the women’s group. She’s a single mother with two children. She lives in a simple, rectangular home on small fenced-in plot. A partial wall and a curtain divides the interior into two rooms.
Marijke's Story: An inside look at an Ethiopian home
When we visited her home to discuss where to put the drip-irrigation vegetable garden we planned to construct, it started to rain. She offered us shelter in her small home. So we all crowded into the one room and sat on small stools, low benches, and two stacked bags of grain. The room was dark. The house had no glass in the window, so she closed the metal shutters and door to keep the rain out.
After the rain passed, we thanked her and left, but not after having admired the pictures she had on her walls: pictures of her children, and of herself with her children. Pictures of a more efficient cooking stove design. Pictures of a drip irrigation garden. She was building that stove next to her house. She was getting that garden – we built it later that week. She’ll show both to others in Gerbichu. She will teach them how to construct their own.
Life has not been easy for this woman. But she takes every opportunity to learn about something new. She is eager for anything that can make life better and to share that knowledge with the other women in the village. Leadership is sharing knowledge and ideas.
It was very humbling to receive the gift of shelter from the rain. Even more so, because she seemed to happy to be able to offer it.”
-Marijke
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